Madrid Wrap-up

Okay, okay. We're not even in Madrid anymore. But we're been procrastinating terribly and are behind on posts.

We had some interesting days in our final Madrid weeks. We booked Brian’s “belated birthday dinner” (at a restaurant he saw online, a bit on the pricier side, but located in a CAVE) for a Tuesday night thinking we wouldn't have to deal with any crowds. Well that Tuesday ended up being the Spanish Constitution Holiday AND the Spain-Morocco World Cup Game. We had planned to walk through more of the Navidad lights in the squares, etc. I assumed the crowds were probably due to the holiday. We had previously seen a large police presence and crowds on Black Friday and thought nothing of it. THEN we realized that Spain is not stupid and the police were there to handle the soccer fans no matter which way the match went. And since Morocco won, there were celebrants and fireworks….and a lot of cranky Spaniards itching to make things much more interesting. We skirted around the part that looked the most riot-like and enjoyed the lights.

 

Excited Morocco fans.

These were the ambulances lined up after dinner.

 

My personal favorite moment was the police escort for the electricians’ van that was swooping in to deal with an outage in the Navidad lights. By the time we were done with dinner (at a very early-for-Spain 11:30) the riot-ish people were cleared out and the lights were repaired. All in all it was a very impressive municipal response.

 

Plaza de Canalejas

Dinner was tasty and ended up being not too expensive. So long as you stick to Spanish wines, it’s hard to pay more than 20 Euros a bottle. In the grocery store it’s about 3.50 Euros. Now that I know Aldi bought Trader Joe’s decades ago, the two buck chuck deals possibly make more sense? Definitely beef is less common than in the US. Instead, tons of pork and plenty of seafood. We're not complaining.

We did a final museum sortie and went to the Reina Sofia. It was....weird. I mean, obviously it's the Modernist museum that is supposed to round out the Prado and Thyssen. But whoa. Spain was an Imperial power for a very long time. So to treat Modernism is if it were the invading power - psychology from Vienna, Marxism from Germany, skyscrapers from New York, photography from France, etc, etc. Weird. 

Okay, I found the umbrella check in the museums hilarious. 

Even in our slightly suburban neighborhood, Navidad lights were de rigueur. (Or whatever the Spanish equivalent of that is.) 

Sound on.

Atocha Station at night

 

We found out this is the Four Seasons Hotel after B took this shot.

Post dinner selfie in the Plaza del Sol.

The other side of the festivities, away from the hooligans.

Lights everywhere.

Down the streets too.

This is the tour bus for the Christmas lights. We thought about it but just walked around instead.

~Lucy